"Are you not going out?" I asked.
"No," he quietly replied, and sat down by me. I worked in perfect silence. He sat, with his elbow resting on the back of my chair, and his eyes following the motion of my darning-needle, handing me my scissors when I wanted them, and picking up my thimble, which fell once or twice. I thought he would get tired of this, but he did not. At length, unable to keep in, I looked up, and said:
"Do you not feel dull, Cornelius?"
"Not at all," he replied, smiling. "I had no idea that to watch the darning of stockings was so entertaining."
As to entertain Cornelius was, by no means, my object, I quietly put by my work, and went up to my room. I had not been there half an hour, when I heard a low tap at my door. I guessed from whom it came, and did not answer it any more than the cough, and the low "Daisy!" which followed. He waited a while, then went down. In a few minutes, Kate entered my room.
"Child," she said, "what keeps you here? Cornelius has just found his way to the kitchen, to inform me that you had vanished, and that he felt morally certain you were unwell."
"I am quite well," I replied, gravely; "but, as you see, particularly engaged in airing my things, for fear of the moths."
"Make haste, then, for he is fidgeting in the front parlour."
"Indeed," I thought, "he may fidget. I am not going to make him lose all his time."
Instead, therefore, of joining him, when my task was done, I quietly slipped down to the garden; but I had scarcely sat down on the bench beneath the pine trees, when Cornelius came, and settled himself by me. I seemed intent on my crochet; but, as this produced no effect, I rose, and composedly observed the sun was very hot.